This invention relates to vertical sidewall sprinklers and more specifically to deflectors included in vertical sidewall sprinklers.
A vertical sidewall sprinkler is designed to provide a specified amount of water to a specified area as a function of time. The amount of water provided to an area can be increased by reducing the distance between sprinklers. However, when sprinklers are placed too close together, cold soldering occurs. In cold soldering, the water released from an actuated sprinkler cools the thermally responsive element of one or more adjacent sprinklers preventing the adjacent sprinklers from actuating.
The Vorkapich U.S. Pat. No. 3,880,239 shows a vertical sidewall sprinkler having a deflector with a central horizontal planar section extending outwardly in a direction perpendicular to the plane of the frame arms on one side and having a portion on the opposite side of the frame arms which is bent downwardly and then inwardly, along with downwardly inclined side surface portions on opposite sides of the central portion of the deflector. The Knight U.S. Pat. No. 2,046,169 discloses a vertical sidewall sprinkler having a deflector which is substantially continuously curved downwardly from a horizontal disposition on one side of the plane of the sprinkler frame arms to an inclined disposition extending through the plane of the frame arms to a nearly vertical disposition on the opposite side of the plane of the frame arms. That deflector has no inclined portions on opposite sides of the portion which is perpendicular to the plane of the frame arms. The Polan et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,669,449 shows vertical sprinklers with deflectors arranged to deflect discharged water via opposing downwardly facing, open channels and outwardly flared sidewalls.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a vertical sidewall sprinkler arrangement which overcomes disadvantages of the prior art.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a vertical sidewall sprinkler arrangement that allows for sprinklers to be placed closer to each other without cold soldering.
These and other objects of the invention are attained by providing a vertical sidewall sprinkler including a sprinkler body having a passage for water and a pair of frame arms projecting forwardly and supporting a thermally responsive element which retains a plug sealing the passage in the sprinkler body. A deflector member is supported from the junction of the frame arms and arranged to direct water in a generally horizontal direction when the sprinkler is mounted vertically. For this purpose, the deflector has a planar central portion substantially perpendicular to the sprinkler axis and extending in a direction parallel to the plane of the frame arms of the sprinkler on one side of the sprinkler axis. On the opposite side of the sprinkler axis the deflector is bent at an angle of about 50xc2x0 toward the sprinkler passage. The planar central portion of the deflector has a curved end edge and straight edge portions extending away from that end in the regions spaced outwardly from the plane of the frame arms and those regions are bent toward the sprinkler passage outlet at an angle of at least 30xc2x0 from the planar central portion. Using two sprinklers having this arrangement which are spaced between six and ten feet apart and located six inches in front of a wall section, good water distribution can be obtained over a 100 square foot area centered between the sprinklers while providing good backwall wetting but avoiding cold soldering.